The Canadian Commonwealth eBook

If ever wildcat flourished in a gold camp or gambling
joint, and that wildcat did not hie to Canada when
the real estate boom broke loose, the wildcat species
not in evidence was too rare to be classified.
Property in small cities sold at New York and Chicago
values. Suburban lots were staked out round
small towns in areas for a London or a Paris, and
the lots were sold on instalment plan to small investors,
many of whom bought in hope of resale before payments
could accrue. City taxes for these suburban improvements
increased to a great burden. Fortunes were made
and lost overnight. Railroad bonds were guaranteed
plentifully enough to pave the prairie. All this
applies chiefly to city real estate. Inflation
beyond investment basis never touched farm lands;
but as a prominent editor remarked, “No fool
thing that ever failed was half as improbable as the
fool things that have succeeded. Men have literally
been kicked into fortunes; and the carefulest man
has often been the biggest fool by not biting till
the last.”

The boom, of course, burst of its own inflation; but
it is worthy of note that the year the boom collapsed
immigration reached its highest figure—­four
hundred thousand. Whether the boom was good or
bad for Canada is hard to determine. It left
a great many fortunes in its wake and a great many
wrecks; but naturally it did for the country what
years of hope, years of dogged silent work, years of
self-confidence could not do—­it jolted
Canada and the world into a consciousness of the Dominion’s
possibilities. It is like the true story of the
finding of coal on Vancouver Island—­a miner
stubbed his toe and lo, a clod of earth split into
a seam of shining worth!

Practically the very same story of the advent of American
energy and daring and optimism into the lumber industry
of Canada could be told; but it is the same story
as of the mines and the land, except that the Canadians
on the ground first reaped larger profits. A
few years ago scarcely an acre in British Columbia
was owned by interests outside the province.
To-day as far north as Prince Rupert the great lumbermen
of the United States own the timber limits.
Canadians bought these lands round four dollars and
five dollars an acre. They sold at from one
hundred dollars to one thousand dollars. One
understands why American lumbermen to-day demand low
tariff on Canadian lumber. East of the Rockies
from Edmonton to Port Arthur the fringe of timber along
the great rivers and lakes is owned by operators of
Wisconsin and Louisiana. In Quebec the most
valuable pulp wood limits—­the last of the
great pulp wood limits on the continent—­are
owned by New York interests. Undoubtedly all
this means “the Americanizing of Canada”
industrially. Will it result in the entrance
of Big Business into politics? That is hard
to answer. The door is not wide open to Big
Business in politics for reasons that will appear in
an account of how Canada is governed. If Americans
have entered so powerfully into Canadian industrial
life, why was reciprocity rejected? That, too,
is an interesting story by itself.